Why Did I Get a B?: And Other Mysteries We're Discussing in the Faculty Lounge

By Shannon Reed

This hilarious and candid collection of personal essays about teaching follows in the footsteps of such classics as Teach Like Your Hair’s on Fire, The Courage to Teach, and Up the Down Staircase. “Send this book to your favorite teacher. They’ll know you’re sucking up. They’ll thank you anyway” (People).

Shannon Reed did not want to be a teacher, but now, after twenty years of working with children from preschool to college, there’s nothing she’d rather be. “With an irresistible combination of compassion, humor, and engaged storytelling” (Shelf Awareness), her essays illuminate the highs and lows of a job located at the intersection of youth and wisdom. Bringing you into the trenches of this most important and stressful career, she rolls her eyes at ineffectual administrators, weeps with her students when they experience personal tragedies, complains with her colleagues about their ridiculously short lunchbreaks, and presents the parent-teacher conference from the other side of the tiny table.

From dealing with bullies and working with special needs students to explaining the unwritten rules of the teacher’s lounge this “starkly honest, at times irreverent” (Library Journal) look at teaching is full of as much humor and heart as the job it celebrates.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Atria Books
• Release date: Jun 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9781982136109

Shannon Reed

Shannon Reed is a lecturer in creative writing at the University of Pittsburgh and a contributor to The New Yorker's “Shouts & Murmurs” pieces. Her work has also appeared in Real Simple, The Paris Review, Slate, LitHub, Longreads, The Guardian, AFAR, The Washington Post, and The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and most notably, McSweeney's. She holds an MA in Educational Theatre and Teaching Secondary English, and an MFA in Creative Writing.

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Part I

Preschool, Elementary School, and Middle School

How I Came to Teach Preschool

When I was growing up, people often asked me if I intended to be a pastor (as my father and his dad were) or a teacher (as my mom had been and her mom was). Despite the question, it was clear that everyone thought I was on my way to clergy-dom. I liked to be center stage, and pastors often are. Teachers, everyone knew, ceded the spotlight to their students, fading away to let others shine, but I took the instructions of This Little Light of Mine very seriously: I was gonna let it shine. That meant being a pastor.

My family seemed to agree with my instincts, knowing my fondness for drama and high emotion, which, let’s face it, come in handy at Easter. They also knew my short temper, which perpetually ended up serving me poorly in any kind of academic setting. And while no one exactly said it, with my sarcasm and healthy sense of skepticism, I sure didn’t seem to be the sweet and nurturing type. My mom’s mom, my Mum-mum, was an excellent veteran teacher who never strongly encouraged me to be one when I was a child. Instead, she made sure I knew it was very hard work. I didn’t mind working hard, but I wanted everyone to know I was.

I grew up in a happily religious family that believed we were each called to do something with our lives; my father often talked about feeling called to serve God as a pastor. The expectation that I would be called to something too was strong for me. Back then, I thought of being called as very dramatic, like those Bible stories where shrubbery bursts into flames and messages are clearly enunciated from heaven. Nothing like that happened to me, certainly never about my career options. Eventually, I started to realize that I felt whatever the opposite of being called was about being a pastor. I could almost hear God saying, Thanks, but pass. But I still didn’t want to teach.

Honestly, I just thought being a teacher was so… typical. In the mid-1990s in Western Pennsylvania, it was almost a de facto career for a young woman who didn’t want to be a nurse or a stay-at-home mom. When I decided to get my undergraduate degree in theatre, most everyone told me it would be a great credential for a teacher to hold. Even after I managed to convince everyone I was not going to be a pastor, they still urged teaching on me. The family business and a reliable one at that! I could do it until I got married! I’d have summers off to do my theatre stuff!

But I couldn’t picture myself as a teacher. Setting aside my family, there were only two kinds in my limited educational experience: first, terrible teachers, who had checked out twenty years before retirement and were just going through the motions. I knew I could not be that kind of teacher, ever. They had ruined too much of my formal education for me. The other kind of teachers were martyrs who gave up everything for their kids, like the high school teacher I had who worked at the school from 6 A.M. until 6 P.M. every day. I couldn’t do that either. I wanted to have a full, rich, interesting life, with travel and friends and books and love. I didn’t want to spend my life working to glorify other people’s annoying kids. I was entering adulthood not long after Mr. Holland’s Opus was released, which summed up everything I disliked about teaching. I mean, come on, it’s a movie that ends with a gifted artist, who’s been ignored as a composer for decades while he helped mostly untalented students learn to play instruments they would abandon once they graduated, finally having his work performed by an amateur orchestra. Then he promptly retires/heads off into the dying of the light. I was not going to be a Mr. Holland.

I often tell my worried college students that much of their first few years after graduation will be the strange meeting of what they thought they would do in adulthood and what they are actually doing—and what they are learning they want to do. I should know—that’s exactly what happened to me. After a brief false start as a reporter for a local radio station, which lasted just long enough for me to realize I hate asking crying strangers whose house has just burned down how to spell their last name, I moved back in with my parents and younger brother in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and started looking for work. A small town in Western Pennsylvania is a terrible venue for the young job-hunter, especially one with a BFA in Theatre, but it turned out that there was a job I was qualified for: I could be the opener at Richland Learning Center, the preschool and day care center in the basement of my father’s church, a large-ish complex on top of a hill with a great view of the Allegheny Mountains and the valley where the city of Johnstown nestles.

Hello, nepotism much? Yep. It’s still a little embarrassing, twenty years later, that I had to get a job this way. On the other hand, there was not a ton of competition for it. I was required to be at the RLC at 5:45 A.M. Parents started dropping their kids off at six o’clock, since a lot of them worked the early shifts at the steel mills and hospitals downtown. Reliable early risers with clearances to work with children are not a dime a dozen, even in an economically depressed town. And let’s not overlook the fact that I had some relevant experience. While my deep knowledge of the production history of Pippin wasn’t particularly helpful, after four summers of working at two sleep-away camps, I understood the demands of working with children. I grasped basic concepts like you can’t hit them, and you can’t let them wander off. It’s true that I never would have taken the job at the RLC without absolutely needing to, and I doubt they would have hired me if they hadn’t absolutely had to. But I had to, and they did too.

I very nearly didn’t get a chance to prove that I’m reliable. I overslept the first morning I was to arise at 5 A.M. My mother woke me in a panic at 5:25, and I was in my car within fifteen minutes making the five-minute trip to the church. I never overslept again (and my mom, proving that she’s the best, got up before me every day to cook me a hot breakfast).

Getting up insanely early is a necessary evil in many teachers’ lives, and while I’ve never taken to it, I did learn to enjoy the sunrise. That route out of my parents’ driveway, past the restaurant where my brother and sister-in-law’s wedding reception would be held in a few years, past the coffee shop where the food would be bland enough for my dad when he was sick two decades later, past the hair salon where my mom and I went for manicures sometimes, within sight of the graveyard where a friend of mine from high school was buried, with just a glimpse of the tiny community library where I had held my first job as a library page ($3 per hour) before I turned into the church’s parking lot, was and is a special one to me. On a very clear day, off in the distance, I could spot the orderly green farms of Somerset County as well as the paths through pine forests on the mountains that marked the runs of our nearest ski resort. The sun cracked open in the sky over the Alleghenies and the city, spilling gold and blue and pink. By the time I creaked open the old wooden door and walked past my dad’s office to the basement, I was awake and ready to distribute hugs and high fives.

Yet I still wasn’t really a teacher. Child Supervisor/Entertainer is a better term for what I did, or perhaps Professional Decent Adult. I was not excellent at the job—I had favorites among the kids and a propensity for screeching when things veered toward chaos. When pressed, I defaulted to responding exactly as my mom would have, usually with a sharply worded Boys and girls!

Luckily for me, my mom is a great educator, so imitating her was a good choice. Despite my flaws, I was beginning to show signs of who I would become as a teacher, and where my strengths would lie: I liked to organize the day clearly. I was principally concerned with the quality of my students’ experiences. I was firm, but loving. I told the truth to parents and students alike. I laughed an awful lot with my kids.

Because the RLC was both a day care and a preschool, we had a wide variety of students, and an ever-shifting population. Almost everyone was dropped off before seven. The preschoolers were handed off to their teachers around seven thirty. In the meantime, various buses arrived to fetch various kids to various schools; most went to the same district I had attended, but there were quite a few private elementary schools in Johnstown too. After everyone was safely on their way, I’d walk around the day care rooms flipping lights off and drift by the other rooms in the basement, where preschoolers were playing, singing, or eating, their sweet, high voices echoing along the linoleum-lined hallway. Church basements have a unique smell—a mix of flop sweat, cooked ham, candle wax, and wine—and there, a layer of baby powder and mud was mixed in. It smelled almost holy.

Then I’d head home for a nap and lunch—again, provided by my wonderful mother, whom you can already tell is the real MVP of my teaching career—before going back to collect the preschoolers. Their school day ended around three but many wouldn’t be picked up until much later. I’d also welcome the elementary kids off the buses and get everyone a snack, then provide a structured environment for homework, sports, and so on before handing everyone off to the right adult by dinnertime. The older kids were technically my responsibility, but there were fewer and fewer of them as the afternoons wore on, since they were off to lessons, practices, confirmation classes, and other activities.

I therefore started spending a lot of time with the preschoolers who were left. That I liked this was a surprise to me, as I’d never really spent much time with kids that young. Turns out, though, that preschoolers are my jam.

Why? I don’t know if you’ve heard about this, but preschoolers are pretty cute. Even the cranky, spoiled ones—cute. They say funny things. They giggle a lot. They fall down in comedic ways. They’re terrible at sports. They like to read books and sing songs. You can see expressions move across their faces like waves on the ocean. They’re often off in their own worlds. These are all qualities that I share. BFFs forever!

Also, they’re pretty cuddly. By the end of the day, I was often to be found sitting on the floor of the church’s gym, watching a couple of third graders play basketball while several three- or four-year-olds sat in or near my lap and sang Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weenie Tiny Little Froggy. It was nice. I had just spent four years in the cutthroat competitive environment of a college theatre program, one in which I almost never excelled. And I had gotten up at 5 A.M. I needed some cuddling, and for someone to love hearing me sing. Like the Grinch, my heart grew three sizes every time one of the kids said, "Again, Miss Shannon!"

I have a very specific memory of stopping to talk to my dad in the hallway on my way to the gym one day, making me just a tiny bit later than usual—no big deal, there was another adult in the gym, and we ran a loose ship in general—but when I finally went in, I saw five or six tiny faces looking worriedly at the door. Upon spotting me, they were thrilled—like, absolutely thrilled. There was clapping! There were squeals of delight! MacKenzie ran to give me a hug! Miss Shannon, who they’d seen literally five minutes ago, had returned! It’s hard not to love being loved like that.

Since this was in the days before we went to the internet with our every query, I started taking home the magazines for preschool teachers that were around and reading up on how to best work with little kids. My mom and grandmother gave me many of their old teaching resources and answered my questions about how to teach letters and numbers. I learned how to offer two choices instead of asking, What do you want to sing? I started using sentences like Time out! and Ow! That hurts my body! and Do you need to toilet? I brought in books from the library that went with the theme of the week (in preschool there is always a Theme of the Week, and I’ll note that adult life is better when you have a Theme of the Week too), and read them to the kids. When they developed a devoted fondness for one of those library books, I bought it at the bookstore in the mall so we could keep reading it. Honestly, maybe I was happy that there was a group of people whom I liked and who thought I was rocking Being an Adult. Whatever it was, I wanted in.

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The preschool ended for the summer, and the preschool teachers had priority for the seasonal work that remained at the RLC, so I was out of a job for a few months. That worked out just fine for me, as I was going back to Camp Ballibay in northeastern Pennsylvania to co-direct the Girls’ Division and direct a couple of plays. But before I left, the director of the RLC called me into her office and asked if I wanted to teach preschool the following year. I wouldn’t be the head teacher—without a teaching degree, I couldn’t hold that title. They couldn’t pay me much (I ended up clearing less than $20,000, the first time I realized how underpaid teachers are), but I wouldn’t have to get up at 5 A.M., and I would spend every day with those cuddle-bugs. I was a little worried because I had no real idea what a preschool curriculum should look like or how the kids would best be taught, but the director said it was fine, as the head teacher would take care of all of that. My job would be to sing with the kids, read them stories, help them with difficulties (that was code for clean them up after they wet their pants), talk to parents at pickup, and stuff like that. It was a great opportunity, especially in the context that I had no other opportunities.

Of course I said yes, and went off to camp genuinely excited about the next fall, and even a little excited about the next stage in Being an Adult after that. Agreeing to become a preschool teacher didn’t seem like a profound life choice. It seemed like the next thing, another role to play in the play called Being Shannon.

Later that summer, I was sitting on the stage of one of the many outdoor theatres at Ballibay, watching the sunset through the trees and talking to a camper I’d known for a few years. We started discussing what was next, after the camp season wrapped up. She was going on to her senior year at a posh Manhattan high school. I told her I was going to teach preschool.

But, she said, wrinkling her nose, I thought you didn’t want to be a teacher. You always say that.

Oh, yeah, I said. I don’t. This is a temporary thing. I’m going to apply to grad school. This was a plan I had concocted recently, and I liked saying those words, which sounded extremely Adult.

Oh? In what? she asked.

…Educational Theatre.

A beat.

I rushed to add …at NYU! hoping that my prospective move to Manhattan would distract her from my intended major. But her look told me that she was well aware of what people with a master’s in Educational Theatre did: become teachers. I didn’t mention to her that I planned to enroll as a double major, earning my certificate to teach secondary English, too. After all, that was just a backup so I could teach while I figured out what I really wanted to do. She continued to arch an eyebrow at me. I turned the conversation to a less fraught topic.

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The shift in my understanding of who I was going to be had begun, but it wasn’t until the fall of my first year of teaching preschool that it was complete. I remember the moment perfectly: I was outside with my class on one of the last warm days in September. Western Pennsylvania tends to slowly sink into seasons rather than abruptly shift from one to the next, which meant that we could admire the leaves just beginning to change on the oak and maple trees around the church property while the weakening sun still kept it warm enough to be outside without coats.

I no longer remember exactly what I was saying about the change of seasons, but the gist was that I was running through the basics of fall, how more leaves would change color and then fall to the ground, and that a new season, also fall, was beginning. It hadn’t yet occurred to me that I was not reminding these preschoolers of exceedingly well-known facts but rather teaching them something they did not already know (RED ALERT: The leaves will fall off the trees!). I’d soon learn that being the first provider of basic information about life is one of the great pleasures of teaching preschoolers.

I picked up a large maple leaf and let it go above my head. We watched it float to the ground. See, I said. "Fall. It fell."

Nick was a sweetheart, big on hugs and short on crying. The best thing about him was that he had a wide-open face, the kind that allowed whatever he was feeling to play across it. As I dropped the leaf and said Fall, I saw his huge brown eyes grow two sizes like a cartoon character’s, and his jaw actually dropped.

Ohhhhh, Nick said. "I get it. He picked up a leaf of his own and turned to the kid next to him. Milos! he said. Fall! He dropped it. It fell!" Milos blinked twice, then smiled. He got it too.

That was it for me, the first moment I was ready to admit I was no longer just a person who liked kids and liked that they liked me. No. I was a teacher. I had taught. They had learned. They were smarter now! I was hooked.

In that moment, I instinctively understood that I was going to have to follow that old theatre motto: hold on tightly, let go loosely. I had held on to my belief for years that I was not, could not be, a teacher. My reasons were good, and, as it would turn out, justified. I’ve spent my entire career fighting for what’s best for my students, but also fighting for the right to be myself. I mean, I control my temper these days, but I’ve never given up on being skeptical or sardonic.

But I knew then, at twenty-three, it was time to be honest: I already had been working with kids for years, and I was, at that very moment, teaching. I was becoming a teacher, even if I assured myself that it was just the thing I would do as well as I could until whatever I was supposed to be became clear. A lot of my friends were in or heading to New York, working one-off and temp jobs while they auditioned and waited for their acting careers to start. But I knew that as right as that was for them, it was wrong for me: I had to do something that was meaningful for me every day, not just put in the time until my life started. Who knew when that would be, anyway? And here I had a job full of meaning and wonder and glitter and pumpkins and naps and books. I should embrace it. So I did.

Despite that shift, I still believed that my calling would feel like being tapped on the shoulder by God. It would take me several years to realize that a calling can become clear in the doing. It’s what I feel when I write something that’s really funny, that I know is going to bring people joy (and possibly tell truth to power). Or when my class at the University of Pittsburgh has a vigorous discussion of Lincoln in the Bardo and everyone leaves excited about the possibilities of fiction. Or in the peace that came over me when I sat on